Looking back to Africa
My introduction to the existence of child soldiers was when I learned, perhaps 10 years ago, that one of the largest Literate Earth Project libraries was in Northern Uganda in a refugee camp for child soldiers and other refugees.
[Literate Earth Project was founded by my son when he was in college. This organization built the first libraries in Eastern Africa.]
This was not a matter I could bear to study or learn about, but it has persisted in creeping into my awareness.
I read several times that child soldiers are forced through beatings and rape to do as they are told, including harming others. I truly cannot think of any travesty worse than this.
While in Africa I learned that this theft of young males from their beds often occurs during a fire set by soldiers in remote tribal villages for the purpose of “enlisting” them. I also learned from one who experienced this abduction, that when a child soldier succeeds in escaping or is injured and is left behind, their ordeal is far from over. These children can never return home. They are outcasts; their are ostracized after their ordeal of living a life in which they were forced to to live a life that included killing and raping others. Their families and villages do not want them back.
The plight of child soldiers has impacted my heart and soul. I learned before my journey that our host in Democratic Republic of Congo has made it his work to come to the rescue of child soldiers. This is one of the reasons I was drawn to go to Congo despite the warnings and despite my husband asking me not to go.
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8 hummingbird way 